> > So, I have tried to run the following command. The command never finishes > > (I gave up after about and hour and a half!). > > Did you ever find what was the problem? > Perhaps you needed to run a vacuum full on the table? Nope. I just gave up in the end and left it with NULL as the default value. There were, in fact, over 2 million rows in the table rather than 1/4 of a million so that was part of the problem. Jonathan -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.7.4/351 - Release Date: 05/29/2006